Bug Therapy Theme

Bugs, bugs and more bugs!  I have quite a bit of materials for a bug theme so I was able to stretch it to two weeks. Here's a look at some books, games, crafts and activities we used in therapy with a bug theme!

BREAK

We had a real sensory bin again this week!  I used leftover paper grass from Easter for the filler.  These Color Bug Catchers are from Learning Resources were great to use for working on a variety of skills.  We named colors, counted, sorted, made requests, named and identified the types of bugs.  They even came with two alligator tweezers to work on a little fine motor skills too. 

Of course we read lots of bug books! Butterflies, ants, flies, bees, caterpillars, fireflies and more! Hey, Little Ant is my new favorite for pragmatic skills.  It's about a boy who wants to squish the ant and he is explaining why he shouldn't.  It leaves you hanging too, great for predicting! 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar is always a must-have with any bug theme.  This year I used this storytelling kit from Lakeshore to retell the story (and name the vocabulary) after we read.  The storytelling pieces have velcro on the back so they stick to a felt board too!

Most of my groups made Bug Jars this week!  The kids colored the lids and around the jar.  We cut them out and stapled them together.  Then when you flip it up there are target words/pictures on the jar underneath.  We used the yellow dot marker to dot the words/pictures on the jar underneath to both mark off the ones we've practiced and it made it look like there were fireflies in the jar.

We used a few pages from my No Prep Bugs file. These shorts stories are great for mid-upper elementary kiddos working on literacy-based language skills and I love matching the vocabulary cards to their definitions.  At the beginning of each sessions I gave my groups a challenge to name 10 bugs.  It was pretty easy until they got down to the last 2 or 3 so these vocabulary cards definitely helped them out.  

We play these dice and mini-eraser games quite a bit as I've made them for almost every theme.  The mini-erasers are from Target. These are so easy to use if you are working with mixed groups, just print the different game boards you need for each student.  We used the digital dice on the SmartBoard from the Toy Theatre website. 

We also broke out some actual games for this theme too!  Here are two games that are great to go with the bug theme.

Last year wee ordered and grew Butterflies (from Insect Lore) at home and shared the process over teleteherapy too.  I put together some printables to go with the Butterfly Kit. These are FREE in my TPT store and could be used without the butterfly kit, just when learning the life cycle of a butterfly. 

And we can't forget all the Boom Cards.  Having a SmartBoard in my room has really let us continue to use Boom Cards in person but I am also still seeing teletherapy groups too. Here are a few we used! I like a variety because all of my groups are so different and some work through decks really quickly.  I like to have options if they finish a deck/game quickly and we need another activity. 

I also can't forget this FREE Boom Card deck, Catch Your Own Bugs!  I made it for my pre-schoolers and it has two activities.  One open-ended activity to "Catch" bugs and another to guess which bug is hiding in the grass based on the clues. 

That's all about bugs!  Our next theme is Gardening which we will still some bugs there too!